Cows, Pigs, Chickens Have Drug Problem Congress Can Fix

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Much of the beef, pork or chicken
we eat contains small amounts of antibiotics. The drugs are fed
to animals so they can thrive in the crowded, often-fetid
factory farms that dominate U.S. meat and poultry production.

But giving animals a steady diet of these medicines has
contributed to the increase of antibiotic-resistant bugs that
can pose grave risks to humans.

This isn’t news to the Food and Drug Administration, which
has known since the early 1970s about the misuse of antibiotics
in agriculture and done little about it. The agency seemed to be
headed in the right direction in 1977, when it proposed a ban on
using penicillin and two forms of tetracycline for animal weight
gain after finding that the drugs “had not been proven to be
safe.” Under pressure from Congress and drugmakers, the agency
was ordered to hold hearings. It never did.

This month the FDA finally said it would issue rules for
drugmakers and farmers to voluntarily stop putting antibiotics
in animal feed and water to help them grow.

The guidelines will ask farmers to phase out the practice
over the next three years. Pharmaceutical makers are to change
the labels on their products, listing the approved uses.

Unfortunately, the loopholes are gaping. Even if farmers
comply, they can still feed animals antibiotics for disease
prevention, provided they get a veterinarian’s approval.

Nor is there much in the way of enforcement envisioned to
discourage farmers or vets from engaging in off-label usage --
giving antibiotics to animals to aid growth. (Animals that are
free of disease tend to grow faster, the argument goes.)

Reason for Skepticism

There also is reason to suspect that drugmakers won’t
voluntarily retreat from a profitable market. About 80 percent
of the antibiotics sold in the U.S., or 29 million pounds a
year, are fed to animals. Heavy farm usage, in part, explains
the trace amounts of antibiotics in soil samples and in 48
percent of the streams tested nationwide.

Many of these drugs, such as fluoroquinolones and
cephalosporins, are front-line treatments for human illnesses
such as urinary-tract infections and pneumonia. More and more of
the bacteria that cause such diseases have become resistant to
the drugs. The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics
estimates that resistant diseases account for $16 billion to $26
billion a year in annual medical expenses and $35 billion in
lost time from work.

The U.S. has lagged behind much of the industrialized world
in weaning farmers from antibiotics. In Denmark, which has
adopted one of the strictest regimens for controlling the drugs,
farmers have improved sanitation and avoid mingling of animal
stocks. Hog production there now surpasses levels achieved with
antibiotics while farmers’ costs have increased by only about 1
percent. More important, certain bacteria have shown declining
resistance to the drugs.

It’s true that overuse of antibiotics in human health has
contributed to resistance. But the U.S. medical community has
made a concerted effort to curb this problem. In any case,
according to the National Academy of Sciences, cutting human
consumption won’t make much difference without reductions on the
farm.

Court Order

Last month, after an environmental group sued the FDA, a
federal judge in New York ordered the agency to follow through
with its 1977 withdrawal plan for penicillin and tetracycline
unless drugmakers and the farming industry could prove that
usage for weight gain is safe. This time the FDA should do what
it intended 35 years ago and begin to decrease the amount of
these drugs in the nation’s food chain.

Rather than waiting three more years to see how the new
voluntary system works, Congress should pass the Preservation of
Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. This bill, sponsored by
New York Representative Louise Slaughter, a microbiologist by
training, would phase out use of antibiotics in animals where no
disease is present. Farmers would still be allowed to give the
drugs to sick animals, or to temporarily treat others to prevent
a diagnosed disease from spreading throughout a herd or flock.
This would bring farm antibiotic use more in line with human
medical standards.

Cutting antibiotic use may never turn back the genetic
clock for microbes that have developed tolerance. But neither
the FDA nor Congress should delay action in light of so stark a
threat to human health.

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